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Re: Requeening swarms?

Can a newly caught swarm be successfully requeened within 24hours or even immediately after capturing a swarm?

Thanks for answers!

Ben

Why would you want to re-queen a newly captured swarm? If you do that you have just taken a freebee and made it cost you money. Beside that, the swarm queen may be a very good queen. You haven't given her a chance yet, to prove herself.

Re: Requeening swarms?

I just called a friend of mine that has had bees for many years and catches lots of swarms. He said, this spring he captured most of a large swarm, but missed the queen. The bees were so high in a tree that they used a bucket on a long pole and was able to capture a good portion of the bees, but when he got home with the bees he discovered that he didn't have a queen. He set the bees up in a nuc and took a frame of young brood, shook all the bees off the frame then installed it in his swarm nuc. He said the bees immediately covered the frame of brood. In 4 days he went back in the nuc, and found several new queen cells. He let them raise a queen, and they have now grown into a strong healthy hive. So if they are willing to make a queen they would be willing to accept a new queen if introduced like introducing her into any other hive. So yes a new swarm would accept a new queen, but again why? Without giving your swarm queen a chance you wouldn't know if you were replacing a good queen with an unproven and possibly inferior one!

Re: Requeening swarms?

I catch swarms for the genetics. A feral swarm has at least survived the previous winter presumably without medication, I don't know where all the managed hives are and I want those survivor genetics. We have a guy in our club that requeens all his swarms with queens out of CA and I've offered to take all his swarm queens to requeen splits. Might get a few duds but can get some boomers too.

Re: Requeening swarms?

Originally Posted by Bill91143

Why would you want to re-queen a newly captured swarm? If you do that you have just taken a freebee and made it cost you money. Beside that, the swarm queen may be a very good queen. You haven't given her a chance yet, to prove herself.

Re: Requeening swarms?

Originally Posted by DLMKA

I catch swarms for the genetics. A feral swarm has at least survived the previous winter presumably without medication, I don't know where all the managed hives are and I want those survivor genetics. We have a guy in our club that requeens all his swarms with queens out of CA and I've offered to take all his swarm queens to requeen splits. Might get a few duds but can get some boomers too.

You can't know where the swarm came from. Was it really feral? Or did it just escape a neighboring apiary?

I'd requeen it in a heartbeat, placing a royal cell in there and culling the old swarm queen. If you don't want a hive that swarms a lot, one is better off not building hives from queens that swarmed to begin with. And even if it costs a royal cell, it's still a freebie package of bees.

Re: Requeening swarms?

Originally Posted by Dominic

You can't know where the swarm came from. Was it really feral? Or did it just escape a neighboring apiary?

All the swarms I've caught have been in residential areas where beekeeping is prohibited by ordinance. I'm not going to go so far to say people don't keep bees in town against the ordinance. I also have the member list with addresses for out bee club but again, not everyone that has beehives is a club member. I'm just saying the likelihood of swarms in town are likely at least one season feral. I've got swarms where the homeowner showed me the hive and said they've been there for years (of course they can die and get replaced too). Free bees, free queen, hoping to get bees that are able to survive on their own.

I know some keeps in our area that have had 30% losses during the summer with queens from California that winter in Florida and were treated for mites this spring before the trip back north. I've yet to lose a hive in the summer.

Re: Requeening swarms?

Yes you can re queen a newly caught swarm. As a mater of fact, it is easier to requeen a swarm than a strong established hive.

As for the other debate. When I started out beekeeping the only bees I had were from swarms. I kept 40 hives for 5 years without ever buying a single bee. I love catching swarms and 99% of the time they make great productive colonies.

Re: Requeening swarms?

Originally Posted by Daniel Y

I found that a swarm will often requeen itself fairly quickly after settling into their new hive.

Hi, if a swarm requeens itself, does it necessarily mean they have the drones to mate it or do they rely on the drones in the particular area of the hive? If so could it also happen that if there are limited number of drones or there are no drones at the particular time the queens were produce will all become unfertilized ?

Re: Requeening swarms?

This tread was started in 2012 so not sure that this will help you but our take is on this, is to requeen with a queen you know where it is from, genetics, etc. and how old she is. You don't want to get in the middle of the season or the winter months with an old queen. Our two cents...